Vintage hand-colored albumen print (circa 1880)
 The quality and preservation of the colours are exceptional.
 Yomeimon Gate of Nikko Toshogu Shrine
 The Yomeimon Gate is the most richly decorated gate in Japan. It is covered with 508 sculptures of children, old people and mythical animals and is a true masterpiece of Edo period craftsmanship.
 Toshogu is a vast and magnificent shrine located in Nikko National Park, Tochigi Prefecture, north of Tokyo. This complex, both Shinto and Buddhist, is centered around the mausoleum of the military leader Tokugawa Ieyasu.
 Shogun of Japan and emblematic figure of Japanese history, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616) is the founder of the eponymous clan that ruled Japan for more than two hundred and fifty years, until the Meiji restoration.
 The karamon is a type of gate found in Japanese architecture. It is distinguished by the use of a karahafu, a roof shape specific to Japan. Karamon are often located at the entrance of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, and have always been a symbol of authority.
 Kusakabe Kimbei (1841-1934) was a colorist and assistant to Felice Beato and Baron Raimond Von Stillfried before opening his own studio in Yokohama in 1881.
 Around 1885, he bought back the negatives of Beato and Stillfried. Kimbei immortalized numerous portraits of Japanese people at the end of the 19th century. The prints, which he hand-colored, were then sold to tourists visiting the country.